The National Rifle Association is airing a television ad (and has on its website this four-minute video) that says the private school that President Obamas daughters attend, Sidwell Friends School, has 11 armed guards. It doesnt.

In fact, it has no armed guards. My Post colleague Glenn Kessler, who writes The Fact Checker column, wrote about the issue here and quoted Ellis Turner, associate head of Sidwell Friends, as saying: Sidwell Friends security officers do not carry guns.

Parents and students say they have never seen one either.

The presidents children are protected by Secret Service agents, which is required by federal law, but that is not the same thing as armed school resource officers.

The Fact Checker, who hands out Pinocchios depending on how accurate  or inaccurate  a particular story is, gave the NRA and its ad the worst possible rating, four Pinocchios. Whereas three Pinocchios are given for significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions, four Pinocchios are given for whoppers.

I love criticizing Obama when he's wrong, as I showed in this FR thread.

However, it turns out that I, and many others here, were wrong about Obama's daughters' school employing armed guard. We should be willing to humbly admit that we were wrong on this issue, and try not to make mistakes of this nature in the future.

>>We should be willing to humbly admit that we were wrong on this issue, and try not to make mistakes of this nature in the future.

OMG...we are our own worst enemy. We find ourselves in a bar fight and we’re shouting “fight fair” as we get beat to death with bar stools and beer bottles. Read “Rules for Radicals” and realize that WE are the radicals now.

I think I saw another version that said that SOME of the guards are ex-police, and may carry arms. I, too, wish that we could have a news source on this that we could trust.

I presume from the name of the school that it was originally founded by Quakers, and may still have some of that element in it. Quakers have a history of refusing all violence, including self defense.

It still appears to have Quaker connections, although I can’t vouch for their position today on such matters. They did apparently bend the basic Quaker rules sufficiently far to take Obama’s kids, knowing that if they did the school would be surrounded by armed Secret Service agents:

May I suggest the possibility that, when the daughters of the President are attending a school, the security is actually managed and dictated by the Secret Service and all armed personnel are ONLY Secret Service. IMHO - When the Secret Service is guarding a principal and the only other person in the room or area is a local cop or security guard, that cop or guard is then considered, by default, the greatest threat.

The fact that the secret service protects the Obama girls (as they should) means that is probably the single most heavily guarded and armed schools in the country. In fact the secret service carry weapons that are already pretty much off limits to the rest of us.

In fact, if the guards were armed, the secret service very likely required them to be disarmed. They aren't going to let just anybody guard the girls.

21
posted on 01/20/2013 7:04:13 PM PST
by cripplecreek
(REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)

Sorry, but I won’t apologize to anyone - in this case for several reasons:

1) If the Secret Service is there, then they don’t need ‘armed guards’, simply because the Secret Service will do that job for them. Anyone that comes within a mile of that school will be tracked and greeted, long before they can pose a threat to anyone.

2) Even when the President’s family is not at the school, there are BOATLOADS of kids of high-ranking government people, including Senators and Congressmen (as well as department heads, etc.). There is simply NO WAY that such a target-rich environment (at least as a kook would see it) would he left unguarded, and it shouldn’t be. In other words, NO WAY!!!

3) Finally, if they didn’t really have armed people there, does one think they would announce it?

So, no, maybe they don’t have ‘armed guards’, but they DEFINITELY have a lot of “armed people” there - maybe janitors, cooks, office workers, etc (who just happen to be plainclothes cops). The official guards, the ones at the TV monitors don’t have to be armed, all they need are radios to reach the right people.

This doesn’t change the fact that *no* Federal employee,past or present...elected,appointed or civil service...should have armed protection of *any* sort.And that goes for the family members of any such employee.

The school doesn’t have to employee armed guards. High profile families employee private armed bodyguards at private schools for their children and I am not referring to secret service agents. Be assured that there is plenty of lead in that school even when the first children are not enrolled.

I commend you for wanting to get the facts straight regardless of some embarrassment by doing so.

Pardon my naivety in such issues, but isn’t the Secret Service armed? If so, then I think that the SS would secure the school if they heard shots being fired at the school, regardless if there was no immediate danger to Obama’s daughters.

In fact, if I was in charge of the school then I would look at the SS’s presence as a freebe with respect to not having to use school funds to pay for security. And for all we know, the school might have expressed the same thing to the SS, the SS possibly responding, “we’ll take care of it.” I don’t know.

Several of Sidwell Friends employees (in that guard operation) are also designated 'police' which gives them the power of arrest. I think most folks saw that term 'police' and assumed all 7 of them were armed with something other than their black belts or whatever it is they use.

Sidwell administrative types tried to portray their 'police' as doing nothing other than calling the real cops ~ although I kind of wonder if they physically detain the targets of their ire, or what ~ that wasn't described.

Think of Sidwell Friends as like a Target in a toney neighborhood, not like a Wal-Mart in a Houston barrio. They ask you to follow them to the command center to await the cops.

Thank you Saint Basil for your insights. I don’t think anybody said anything to contrary. We’re making the point that his kids get security, but Regular Moms and Dad’s are having their constitutional rights infringed upon. Got it?

Republicans are weird; in many cases they give off signs of really NOT wanting to win at all. What REALLY gets their pulse racing and their pants all big is the biiiig MORAL VIIIICTORY.

Uh-huh.

They want to “fight the good fight”, but then LOSE, using some stupid combination of loser tactics that show they’re somehow morally SUPERIOR to others.

And so they lose, but somehow in their minds their loser tactics show that they WIN REAL BIG in some subtle way that only occurs to really amazing, really moral people.

And the related fantasy is to REALLY OWN UP TO THEIR MISTAKES —this is huge. It’s like a oogling a whole phalanx of t*tty dancers —gets ‘em SUPER excited...!

I’ve seen this a bunch of times, and I think it’s a smug form of spiritual masturbation, or something. Their early lives in high-school were titty-twisters, noogies, atomic-wegies —picture Marty MacFly, and you’re really close.

Whenever you meet one of these creatures, just pivot on the ball of your foot and break into a sprint, because he/she LOVES for their loser flames to shine really bright with LOTS of like-minded people.

Pardon my naivety in such issues, but isnt the Secret Service armed? If so, then I think that the SS would secure the school if they heard shots being fired at the school, regardless if there was no immediate danger to Obamas daughters.

I highly doubt that would be their orders. Their orders are likely to protect the girls at any and all costs. And that does not include hunting down an active shooter unless he is the room with the girls.

Their job would be to GTFO and protect the girls only.

49
posted on 01/20/2013 7:29:50 PM PST
by cableguymn
(The founding fathers would be shooting by now..)

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